'100 flights before breakfast' warning

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Planned changes could lead to a trebling of early morning flights

The council believes that by introducing lower noise categories for new aircraft types, and at the same time scrapping the current ceiling on flight numbers, ministers could make it possible for more than 50 aircraft to land between 4.30am and 6am.

The council has been flooded with calls from local residents concerned about the health risks associated with sleep disruption.

Many people say the present noise levels are intolerable and that the commercial interests of the airlines are being put ahead of basic human rights issues.

Now the council has announced a public meeting in Putney to spell out its concerns.  The meeting takes place on Wednesday November 3 at Putney Methodist Church (corner of Gwendolen Avenue and Upper Richmond Rd) SW15 - start 8pm.

The main speakers will be council leader Edward Lister and HACAN chairman John Stewart.

Cllr Lister said: "No one likes being woken up in the morning at 4.30am and then finding they can't go back to sleep. Now it looks like we could be facing 50 night flights in the 90 minutes up to 6am.

"There are already 50 arrivals between 6am and 7.30am so this could mean more than 100 flights landing over large parts of south and west London before breakfast.

"I am getting inundated with calls from residents who just see the problem getting worse. They have no confidence that anyone will stand up to the powerful aviation lobby. They fear that the only possible reason for changing the noise limits is not to make life quieter but to allow more aircraft to fly.

"What they all want to know is how the economic benefit derived from these 16 early morning flights can really be so great that it can possibly justify putting at risk the health of the 1/2 million people who live under the flightpath."


Last year council noise experts revealed that the true noise level at Heathrow was twice as high as admitted. This is because most of the early morning arrivals at Heathrow are B747-400s with Rolls Royce engines. These have been allocated a quota count score of 2 points when the Department for Transport's own research shows that they should be in a QC4 or QC8 category.

Proposals in the current consultation for a new QC 0.5 category could make it possible for each of these B747-400s to be replaced by four A340s.

October 21, 2004